This Is Who Is Teaching College
-
Im talking about engineering as a specific example refuting what you and scott are saying that college is worthless. English Lit is worthless, nobody is going to argue that. Most humanities degrees are totally worthless, and I would question the intelligence of anybody spending 100,000 dollars to learn how to read books, or learn Social Studies for 4+ years.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Im talking about engineering as a specific example refuting what you and scott are saying that college is worthless. English Lit is worthless, nobody is going to argue that. Most humanities degrees are totally worthless, and I would question the intelligence of anybody spending 100,000 dollars to learn how to read books, or learn Social Studies for 4+ years.
College is not required to learn engineering. It can, in some instances, provide opportunities to explore areas of engineering that the average person might not have access, but certainly isn't required.
We hire engineers, and yes, they all have degrees, but we still have to teach them how we engineer our products. And, more to the point, we have non-degreed employees that know more about the engineering of our products and this industry then some of our degreed engineers.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@scottalanmiller said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@wrx7m said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@DustinB3403 said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@wrx7m said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Oh thank goodness. I thought this was going to be a sob story post about these people who should be able to earn something even though they made horrible decisions to take out insane student loans for something almost nobody cares about. It's not. It is about people wanting the rest of us to pay them to do something society doesn't really want or need.
These people need a dose of reality and a lesson in the sunk cost fallacy. Cut bait, head into the real world and learn a real skill.
Now at the same time, I do not think teachers are worthless, but teaching is not a societal need, but a societal expectation.
Higher education is expected to be available and had by everyone, but not everyone wants to go to college. They might just want to go and work for a stone mason, and learn how to work with stone.
Its informal but practical education that teaches real world skills.
I agree. Teachers are not worthless. My mother was a teacher her whole life.
Higher education should be just that- higher education. Don't coddle people in their pursuits of degrees or studies that serve no real purpose. There should never be loans given for those degrees. Imagine if people had to pay cash as they went for a degree in something that nobody needs or cares about. I would be very surprised if there weren't less than half the number of people in these self-created conditions.
No loans, period. No degree is for getting a job, university training is for "general learning", it's not a trade school. So no degree should have loans.
Generally that might be true, but you aren't going to be a very good electrical engineer or chemist if you don't have a foundation in calculus/physical sciences with someone to teach you why things are the way they are.
Having gone to school at both top ranked engineering schools I can tell you that I got more and better calculus and roughly as good physics in high school as they did in the engineering programs. While university influence makes it very hard to get a job in engineering without a degree, it is in no way because of the educational aspects. That's totally false.
My dad was a lifetime engineer as well and he actually just had a meeting where he went off on his old university for having taught him nothing (and this was in the 1960s) and how he had to learn everything without them. And it is so much easier today as high school goes farther and there are unlimited resources for all of the other stuff.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
You can go read Wikipedia entries or get a world book encyclopedia, or read Principia Mathematica, but good luck learning any context without any guidance. Sure you don't usually do that stuff in the workplace, but you need to know how it works.
Actually, it's easier without university guidance because you get better guidance, faster without it. The idea that university is the only place to get the context and guidance is long gone. Of course just reading Wikipedia and Googling things would be a disaster, alone. But all of the books and curriculum and even the coursework of universities... plus tons of equal or better non-university training, is all public and available. Any twelve year old interested in engineering could easily teach it to themselves if they were inclined to do so.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
How can you design circuits without knowing what imaginary numbers are, why theyre used in circuit design, why they are irrational, why they are imaginary, why theyre useful in engineering.
That's HIGH SCHOOL math. Not even senior year stuff. University wasn't what provided that amount of knowledge even when university was important.
Learning all of the math available in engineering is really easy to do with just books. In fact, having done both, it's often easier from books. And certainly faster.
Do you need math and science to be an engineer? Absolutely. Do you learn that at university? You could, but not as easily as learning it somewhere else. Is it university level math or science needed for engineering? No.
-
@scottalanmiller said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
How can you design circuits without knowing what imaginary numbers are, why theyre used in circuit design, why they are irrational, why they are imaginary, why theyre useful in engineering.
That's HIGH SCHOOL math. Not even senior year stuff. University wasn't what provided that amount of knowledge even when university was important.
Learning all of the math available in engineering is really easy to do with just books. In fact, having done both, it's often easier from books. And certainly faster.
Do you need math and science to be an engineer? Absolutely. Do you learn that at university? You could, but not as easily as learning it somewhere else. Is it university level math or science needed for engineering? No.
Scott what reality are you in? Most people graduate high school cant even do addition and subtraction without a calculator. Learning engineering physics and calc in high school is not happening anywhere in this country.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Im talking about engineering as a specific example refuting what you and scott are saying that college is worthless. English Lit is worthless, nobody is going to argue that. Most humanities degrees are totally worthless, and I would question the intelligence of anybody spending 100,000 dollars to learn how to read books, or learn Social Studies for 4+ years.
And I'm saying that it is a prime example of how true it is. Any engineering field can be learned faster, better, earlier without the university system. Mechanical, electrical, computer, civil, chemical (this might be the hardest), industrial, manufacturing systems.... all can be taught without the university system, trivially.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Scott what reality are you in? Most people graduate high school cant even do addition and subtraction without a calculator. Learning engineering physics and calc in high school is not happening anywhere in this country.
And you think that THOSE kids are going on to engineering schools and graduating?
Physics and calc is normal in high school. Every high school kid I know is getting that stuff. Or at least have access to it and only don't get it if they opt out of it.
@art_of_shred and I took the first two years of engineering university calculus together in high school, in fact, as did something like 30% of our class.
My nieces definitely get this stuff in high school, even in Texas.
Find my any high school in the US that doesn't offer physics and calc.
-
And even if not every high school offers it, it doesn't change the fact that it is high school level math in the US and abroad. And it doesn't change the fact that any high school student interested in math can teach it to themselves. There are amazing books that you can pick up that teach it really, really well.
-
Not only is calc standard high school math even in the worst education states, but the Khan Academy which is the largest and most important non-profit high school level academy system includes it. So here, in this one site alone, you have all that you need for someone interested in calc in high school to have access to it.
-
@scottalanmiller said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Scott what reality are you in? Most people graduate high school cant even do addition and subtraction without a calculator. Learning engineering physics and calc in high school is not happening anywhere in this country.
And you think that THOSE kids are going on to engineering schools and graduating?
Physics and calc is normal in high school. Every high school kid I know is getting that stuff. Or at least have access to it and only don't get it if they opt out of it.
@art_of_shred and I took the first two years of engineering university calculus together in high school, in fact, as did something like 30% of our class.
My nieces definitely get this stuff in high school, even in Texas.
Find my any high school in the US that doesn't offer physics and calc.
They offer it, but nobody is taking it except 1 or 2% of the kids who want to do more than work as a wageslave in a warehouse or work as minimum wage government employees. It isn't happening like you say. FFS the high school drop out rate in this country is approaching 20% for all students and youre saying everybody cant get engineering classes in high school.
-
@pchiodo said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Im talking about engineering as a specific example refuting what you and scott are saying that college is worthless. English Lit is worthless, nobody is going to argue that. Most humanities degrees are totally worthless, and I would question the intelligence of anybody spending 100,000 dollars to learn how to read books, or learn Social Studies for 4+ years.
College is not required to learn engineering. It can, in some instances, provide opportunities to explore areas of engineering that the average person might not have access, but certainly isn't required.
We hire engineers, and yes, they all have degrees, but we still have to teach them how we engineer our products. And, more to the point, we have non-degreed employees that know more about the engineering of our products and this industry then some of our degreed engineers.
Even places like Eastman Kodak, a Fortune 100, let people move into engineering without degrees. It was harder back in the "how could you learn this without a degree" era, but we are long past that era. Anyone who has worked in engineering in the last thirty years should have seen how trivially easy it would be to learn the same material in other ways.
In fact, my first university taught so poorly that I had to learn the material in many cases on my own, anyway. Which is why I learned about some of the resources. What I learned from going to university was... how useless it was and how much it blocked my way to a good education.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
They offer it, but nobody is taking it except 1 or 2% of the kids who want to do more than work as a wageslave in a warehouse or work as minimum wage government employees. It isn't happening like you say. FFS the high school drop out rate in this country is approaching 20% for all students and youre saying everybody cant get engineering classes in high school.
So we are talking about kids becoming engineers. You are saying that you can only learn this stuff in college and that it's not high school level stuff. But I'm saying that it's available in essentially every high school in the country.
Unless the fact that nearly no students go on to engineering colleges disputes your point, that only a small percentage of students in high school other to take calculus does not dispute mine. You can't have it both ways. We are talking about the pool of students that want to be engineers and could at least get into college for it (which is a lower bar than becoming engineers.) In that pool, you have essentially 100% access to high school level calculus and alternative learning that are better, faster and earlier that the universities provide.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
They offer it, but nobody is taking it except 1 or 2% of the kids who want to do more than work as a wageslave in a warehouse or work as minimum wage government employees.
Actually nationwide the percentage is 16% taking calculus. That's huge. That makes it very, very mainstream at the high school level. Considering what a tiny percentage of people planning for serious careers can even make use of calculus that's a staggering number. Scientists, engineerings, software engineers... who else uses calc? Not many people. So for 16% to take it in high school means that basically it is offered to everyone and more people take it than even have a potential use for it!
-
When I was in high school, it was only 7% of all US HS students got through calculus. In 2009 it was up to 16%. The push for it since then has been strong. Likely it is quite a bit higher now seven years later. It could easily be 18% or more.
And that is the number completing it, not the number taking it!! That's enormous.
Consider that only 66% of all students go to college and the majority of those can't even think about doing calculus... ever. And most of the ones that could do calc are in fields that don't use it.
Easily the percentage doing it in high school is higher than the percentage doing it in college. And doing it in college is really just a rudimentary recap for students that are behind.
-
@scottalanmiller said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
They offer it, but nobody is taking it except 1 or 2% of the kids who want to do more than work as a wageslave in a warehouse or work as minimum wage government employees.
Actually nationwide the percentage is 16% taking calculus. That's huge. That makes it very, very mainstream at the high school level. Considering what a tiny percentage of people planning for serious careers can even make use of calculus that's a staggering number. Scientists, engineerings, software engineers... who else uses calc? Not many people. So for 16% to take it in high school means that basically it is offered to everyone and more people take it than even have a potential use for it!
I took both in HS myself, but it was just basic differential and integral calculus and how it applied to physics. Didn't get to do z axis calculus or linear algebra until college. I'm just wondering how bad most universities are if you are right. Perhaps i am biased due to family experiences; grandpa went to West Point, his brother to Air Force Academy, my dad and uncles UVA/MIT/UD. My university (UD as well)had an excellent engineering program.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
I took both in HS myself, but it was just basic differential and integral calculus and how it applied to physics. Didn't get to do z axis calculus or linear algebra until college.
Definitely did linear algebra in HS. There was third semester calc in college for some programs, but not necessary for a lot of engineering. And SUPER simple to get on your own during HS if you want. In no way is university a gatekeeper to that math knowledge in any way. I only ever claimed two semesters worth of calc in HS, though.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
I'm just wondering how bad most universities are if you are right.
REally, really bad.
I've been told (by teachers) that the only purpose of university is to cover the material from HS again because so many kids are busy doing other things during HA that they aren't there to learn.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
My university (UD as well)had an excellent engineering program.
I got into the top ranked engineering program in the world. I'm not saying that it was bad. I'm saying that it wasn't capable of delivering math or science that I could not (or did not) have access to learn other ways. It DID get me access to foundries, manufacturing gear (I was MSE, not ME) and heavy gear that were really hard to get access to back then.
However, for the amount that college cost for that engineering degree I could have bought all of that gear and started a manufacturing firm and gotten more knowledge and experience and owned a company for it.
-
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@scottalanmiller said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
@momurda said in This Is Who Is Teaching College:
Scott what reality are you in? Most people graduate high school cant even do addition and subtraction without a calculator. Learning engineering physics and calc in high school is not happening anywhere in this country.
And you think that THOSE kids are going on to engineering schools and graduating?
Physics and calc is normal in high school. Every high school kid I know is getting that stuff. Or at least have access to it and only don't get it if they opt out of it.
@art_of_shred and I took the first two years of engineering university calculus together in high school, in fact, as did something like 30% of our class.
My nieces definitely get this stuff in high school, even in Texas.
Find my any high school in the US that doesn't offer physics and calc.
They offer it, but nobody is taking it except 1 or 2% of the kids who want to do more than work as a wageslave in a warehouse or work as minimum wage government employees. It isn't happening like you say. FFS the high school drop out rate in this country is approaching 20% for all students and youre saying everybody cant get engineering classes in high school.
This is a social failure and it's symptoms being cast on the educational system. Just because most of these kids don't want to learn, doesn't mean they can't, and it certainly doesn't mean it's not available. It is an injustice to brainwash these kids into thinking that the only way to a good job with good pay is through a college education and mountains of debt.
